


Rinse

by headcanonftw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Apocalypse, Fire, Gen, M/M, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-17
Updated: 2010-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:56:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headcanonftw/pseuds/headcanonftw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fire is everywhere and the world is burning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rinse

Fire is everywhere and the world is burning.  
  
Sam stands at the precipice, shoulders drawn back and palms facing out in front of him where they rest by his hips, the image of peaceful  _tadasana_. Everything he knows - from now, from the past, from whatever future he may be trying to create - lies in ruins, already destroyed or well on its way.  
  
All except one.  
  
:::  
  
The Roadhouse explodes from years of gunpowder buildup and one little spark. Ellen is lying inside, behind and under the thick mahogany bar she once bussed, her daughter wrapped within her protective arms as they wait for the fire to envelope them. Jo’s face is pressed into her mother’s bosom like the frightened child she never learned not to be. Ash isn’t far away, hiding behind his computers, as the understanding that they’re all going to die burns through his veins worse than any amount of alcohol or sobriety.  
  
:::  
  
Sam looks up to the sky, black and beautiful with soot and sparkling with dancing flares, eyes still blissfully hazel. He tilts his head as he examines a ray of sunlight piercing nearby cloud cover, chuckles as he takes in the bloody color even the sun has been stained.  
  
:::  
  
The Impala is sure to be scorched and melted down by the flames licking her sensuous, gleaming sides, the leather already tightening and degrading with the heat. She’s abandoned at the side of a road that used to be made of asphalt but has been reduced to a bubbling puddle of dirt and tar, guns and ammunition - consecrated iron and silver rounds - melting in the hidden trunk compartment no one ever found.  
  
:::  
  
Sam closes his eyes, the warmth of the burning Earth around him reminding him of long days spent crossing empty countryside. Eyes shut, he remembers the tunes to a thousand songs he always resented, but sang along to on good days anyway. His lips curl further into that infuriatingly tranquil smile.  
  
:::  
  
The nursery is crumbling as it becomes enveloped in the flames, the fire that started somehow in the ceiling, not the walls. His mother watches over him, pride  in her eyes and smile before her face twists into that pained gasp that would be forever burned into his family’s memory (though never his). Her blood - so thin and watery compared to that to which he’s just been introduced - drips onto his young father’s hand as he turns and screams and breaks.  
  
:::  
  
And yellow becomes as gold.  
  
:::  
  
Random diners and dive bars scattered across the back roads of the continental U.S. are bursting into flames, most of the fires igniting in a back room or adjacent alleyway than in the kitchen, or any other logical place. Years’ - or, for some, only days’ - worth of grime and sex and filth curl and crisp, and the surfaces all around become clean once again for just a moment before turning to ashes themselves.  
  
:::  
  
A flash of something like jealousy rises inside Sam’s chest and he exhales harshly;  _breathe_.  
  
:::  
  
Junk heaps formerly known as cars and trucks fall to rusty pieces in the dust and smoke as a house full of books and bottles shakes to its foundation. Flames are licking up the floral wallpaper, which has faded and yellowed with age, and Bobby just sits in his wheelchair, holding his shotgun and staring straight forward, trucker cap and flannel shirt still firmly in place as he clenches his teeth against the tears threatening to fall.  
  
:::  
  
Sam’s eyes fall, golden and churning with want, to the ground by his feet. Or, more accurately, to what’s  _lying_  on the ground by his feet.  
  
:::  
  
Screams erupt in a South Dakota ICU as fire breaks out in a patient’s room. The room has had a long history of death and despair, as all hospital rooms do, but now its occupant lies quietly, arm in a sling and leg wrapped in bandages. John Winchester rubs a hand over his beard and stares at the ceiling remembering his wife. Mary curls in close beside him, and his undamaged arm touches hot air and hospital linens when he tries to tighten it around her.  
  
:::  
  
A rose garden in Kansas City, MO, burns to a crisp in seconds and blends in seamlessly with the surrounding dirt and gravel.  
  
:::  
  
Jess sits on her bed in her white nightgown, the one Sam loved most because, he said, it reminded him of his mom. She doesn’t even know if that’s true - she really knows so little about him when she thinks about it - but still she sits, knees drawn up to her chest, inhaling smoke and exhaling a steady stream of tears. He was such a comfort when he was around, big and strong despite how young and thin he looked; he would have held her when the fire started. Jess tilts her head back and looks at the ceiling, one place his eyes would often stray and he would look so far away…  
  
And then suddenly her spine is snapping straight and rigid and for a moment she’s flying before there’s a loud thump against her back and she’s staring down at their bed.  
  
And she thinks…no, she  _sees_  - Sam is there, on the bed, lying down and looking up at her and smiling, and his eyes are yellow. And he speaks, and she can barely hear him past the roaring of the fire as it spread out around from her on the ceiling.  
  
:::  
  
Dean lying at his feet, colder than anything around them, eyes closed as if in gentle sleep…he looks like a little boy. Just like Sam remembers from his earliest memories. Dean was eight the first time Sam really saw him, and even then - when his freckles were taking over and his adult features were all already there, waiting for his child’s face to grow into them - Dean was beautiful. Tiny hands did grown-ups’ chores, cleaning and cooking and caring the way Sam had never seen an adult manage, and as he and his responsibilities grew, Sam loved him more and more.  
  
He just never  _knew_. Never knew it could be like this. So simple and perfect.  
  
:::  
  
Max Miller sits in a corner in his crowded house. His father, his uncle, his stepmother - they’re all quiet now, finally,  _finally_  silent. The house is burning down, and somewhere in the back of his head Max feels like maybe he should do something about it, that there’s a fire extinguisher, that they have extendable shower heads and kitchen faucets…but those instincts were learned from an unknowing and unloving father, and something else has awakened that matters more. His mind keeps flashing yellow, which blurs his vision and makes his eyes well up with tears with the smell of sulfur. But he’s not afraid - dear god, he’s  _not afraid_  - and he seeks it out instead.  
  
Max rises from the carpet and walks to the stairs, looking up to the second floor past the fiery beams falling from the ceiling and the panels exploding from the walls with the pressure. He ascends the stairs like it’s a walk upwards to heaven, to salvation. Something beautiful is waiting for him.  
  
:::  
  
Dean stirs, wincing a little for the stiff pain in his limbs, crinkles forming around his eyes as he does. Sam watches the skin flex and fall and fold, and he thinks he could perfect that, return Dean to his peak of beauty (when would it be? twenty-seven? twenty-eight?), but he won’t. Dean is exactly as Sam knows him, which means he’s exactly how he wants him. How he wants to caress that skin, to taste the sweat that beads on his forehead as he lifts himself from the ground.  
  
And in a flash that reminds him of adolescence, Sam realizes that there’s no more wanting, no more yearning for what he can’t. Because he  _can_.  
  
:::  
  
It’s a small, but comfortable, one-bedroom/one-bath apartment in the heart of San Francisco, and Madison is spending an evening in her bedroom alone with a large cup of coffee. She blows at the steam, trying to cool the beverage enough to drink without scalding her upper lip. She sees the red, flickering light filtering through her sheer curtains, feels the room growing increasingly hot, borderlining uncomfortable. She knows when the fire claims her building, hears the creaks of the old structure as it weakens and the screams of the people below as they follow suit.    
  
She glances out at the moon, barely visible sliver of orange through the smoke and clouds, and becomes entranced by its foggy edges and shining light. She abandons her coffee and stands at her open window, watching the moon’s feeble beams ebb and flow.  
  
 _I’m not a monster,_  she thinks. And she falls.  
  
:::  
  
Dean’s green eyes reflect the flames that surround them so totally but don’t touch them perfectly, the surface so wide and glassy and open. He stares around, horror etched in deep lines on his forehead and around his mouth, and Sam wants to kiss them. No, Sam doesn’t want.  
  
Sam’s fingers trace the lines for only a moment before Dean jerks away, those wide eyes full of fear and questions, but mostly just sad. Sam tilts his head, looks down at his big brother curiously.  
  
They don’t need words, never have.  
  
:::  
  
It’s like a party in Cold Oak, but no one’s rejoicing. Ava is sitting on the steps in front of one house, staring with a bored expression at the woods as they go up in flames. Jake ran away early on, into the trees, and no one bothered to follow him but Ava’s large, roving eyes. Lily is standing on the highest ground, arms crossed in her long black sweater and staring at her feet. Her eyes have dark circles beneath them, but whether they were already there or if they’re made of soot no one remembers. Or cares.  
  
:::  
  
Dean’s closing himself off, building the walls he can as he physically huddles in on himself in his jacket - Dad’s jacket, passed on to Dean when John’s shoulders got piled too high with grief and guilt and responsibility to fit into it anymore. Actually, Dean abandoned it years ago, just sticking to his canvas jackets and leaving it in the trunk, doing his best to forget he ever wore the thing.  
  
But he put it on this morning, Sam watching, and he’d turned to look at him as he yanked it closer to his body. Those eyes had been wary even then, but not of Sam, not entirely. Just afraid that this…this might be…  
  
 _Well?_ Sam had asked, eyebrows knitting with worry.  
  
Dean had shrugged, nonchalant, but Sam had seen the bricks shiver where they kept him locked inside.  _Kick it in the ass._  
  
:::  
  
A dam broke and a lake drained, leaving the town to dry up and die too. Whatever was left is burning.  
  
A plane crashed. Where it landed, where it took off, where each of the survivors lived and died - it’s burning.  
  
Houses where women were tied up and beaten by their lovers, and the sewers system below them, are burning.  
  
:::  
  
Sam’s hand strokes through Dean’s short hair and Dean turns his face away from Sam but doesn’t try to dislodge his hand. His defenses are strong, have always had to be to get him through everything he’s had to see, but Sam can see their construction faltering, stopping. They’re not coming down, but they’ve quieted for now.  
  
Sam lowers his head and looks directly into Dean’s eyes, and Dean has to look up. Sam’s golden irises glitter in Dean’s emeralds, destined never to be as bright or brilliant. He presses his other palm to Dean’s cheek, soothing it across the stubble at his jaw and just touching the corner of his mouth before moving away. And Dean isn’t moving away. His tense neck is relaxing, and his face is pressing back against Sam’s huge hand.  
  
:::  
  
There are broken remnants of furniture piled in all the houses in Cold Oak, perfect kindling for the fires when they catch. Andy sits huddled under a mostly-intact table, holding his legs and shivering from the cold sweat running down his forehead and back. He catches a scream from outside and he gasps harshly, ducking his head and drawing his shoulders up, sorry excuse for protection. His toes curl in his Converse and his jeans provide no support against the cold fear creeping through him even as the house starts to burn away around him.   
  
Just as tears threaten to mix with the sweat and grime on his face, an arm circles his shoulders and hold him close. The body he’s flush with is warm and smells of clean linen and barbecue. And Andy doesn’t have to look up to know it’s his brother, finally doing what he should have from the start. He smiles sadly as he snuggles closer to his twin against the cold and the despair.   
  
They never did get that beer.   
  
:::  
  
Sam’s lips brush Dean’s for the first time, and it’s dry and soft. He didn’t even really do it, Dean did - Sam maneuvered his face closer to Dean’s for a better look at the smattering of freckles on his nose and the long lashes framing his eyes, but it was Dean who had lifted his head up that extra inch or two and closed that distance.    
  
Once met, their lips part and press, and Sam’s stomach fills with a warmth the fires raging around them never could have achieved. He flicks his tongue out to taste Dean’s lips and Dean drinks it in, tangling his own with Sam’s and their mouths mimic their hands - touching so softly and carefully but with so much  _need_ …and Sam feels when Dean’s shoulders relax in the special way he knows means the walls are down.  
  
:::  
  
The skies are red for days as the world burns, and Sam and Dean see none of it, lost in each other and the sweet poetry that is the end.    
  
:::  
  
When they look anywhere else again, Dean’s eyes are dark, the color of evergreen trees at dusk.  
  
And as the sky returns to blue and the smoke fades and gives way to the not-menacing grey of rainclouds, cooling rain gently spattering the tops of their heads and their shoulders and the deadened dirt around them, Dean looks at Sam.  
  
And Sammy’s eyes are hazel.

**Author's Note:**

> So…I decided to try my hand at writing a fic for spnflashfic’s latest challenge: “it’s the end of the world” (and then discovered that the comm’s been inactive since April '09 -__- joy). So I wrote this uber-destructo-fic, wherein I discover that writing until 4:00am is fun and that there are really only 3 or 4 ways to say “fire.” I don’t really know what happened here…but I think I like it. Enjoy! :)
> 
> Thanks to Bree for helping me think of more places when I started running out of ideas. 
> 
> Also, let me admit that I think I kinda accidentally stole some of fleshflutter’s style for this piece, since I’ve recently become kind of obsessed with her horror fic. *nervous laughter* I hope this is a compliment, not an offense!


End file.
